Chapter 9
Nine
The face of my giddy and smiling child would be heartwarming if it wasn’t due to her excitement over me leaving for two weeks.
“You don’t even have to call.” She swings the driver’s door open, gesturing for me to get in. Wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt, pink cotton shorts, and bare feet, she looks like a summer camp butler.
Bennie not minding that I’m leaving for two weeks stings, but her seeming thrilled about it makes me question everything. I have to pry her from the door to get a hug.
My gaze flicks over her shoulder toward my mother, who smiles brightly.
“You sure you’re okay with this, Bee?” I’m a masochist for asking because every other time she’s said why wouldn’t I be? “Two weeks away from you—we’ve never been apart that long. Maybe I should cancel.”
“Cancel?” Her eyes go wide and her chin jerks back.
“No. Stay longer. A treasure hunt might take all summer.” Her eyes lit up when I explained the plan—less Nash—to her yesterday.
She could barely keep her legs still while I talked.
“I’m going to Camp Gypsy while you’re gone.
We’ll be busy. I won’t even be sad or notice you’re gone. ”
Ouch.
“You want me gone all summer?” I don’t hide my hurt nor explain that I don’t have all summer because in two weeks a roofing company might start deshingling the store. “And I’m not treasure hunting, I’m looking for gold coins that belonged to a bank.”
She frowns. “Sounds like a treasure.”
“Not the same.” Calling it gold coins sounds like less of a reason to have me committed. “Either way, I’m not leaving you all summer.”
“Well, I’ll be fine if you do.” She steps away from my hug. “It might take a while. To find everything. We really need the gold.”
“We do.” I hate that she’s worried about such adult problems. “But we’ll figure it out if I don’t find it. If you have to leave Fontain Academy, then we—”
“I don’t want to leave,” she argues.
My brows pinch. “Since when? I thought you hated that uniform.”
“Since now.” Her brown eyes fill with unusual determination. “You have to find it.”
“Bennie,” my mom scolds from behind her. Bennie turns and my mom raises her eyebrows.
“Sorry,” Bennie says a little softer, looking back at me. “I just mean it’s not so bad. You were right is all. And I’ll be here with Gypsy and Aunt Reese. I’ll be fine.”
I blow out a long breath. I’m not in the mindset to deal with whatever this is with her. She has two days left of school next week and people here to take care of her after. She’ll be fine; I’ll deal with her new personality when I get home and know we can still afford food. “Okay.”
“And I’m not a baby.”
My brows pinch. “I know that. I never said y—”
“Then don’t worry about coming back until you find it.” This isn’t me being crazy, she doesn’t care that I’m going. “And you can’t do it alone,” she says, “so don’t be stubborn.”
“Bennie,” my mom snaps, uncharacteristically firm. “Enough.”
Bennie doesn’t soften this time when she looks at my mom. “You’re the one who said we don’t have time.”
My mom’s eyes widen.
“Mom,” I huff, fully annoyed. Leave it to my mother to fight a surgery and be dramatic about it. “You have time.” Softer, to Bennie: “We have time, Bee. Gypsy is fine, we just don’t want her to get worse—” I cut my eyes to my mother along with a tight smile. “Or more difficult.”
Bennie’s lips twist to one side and my motherly guilt nearly wins its battle of talking me out of this. A reluctant “Fine” is all I get.
“I’ll call you,” I promise.
“Okay.” She takes another step away from me and looks at her feet. “But you don’t have to.”
Right.
“Love you, Bennie Francine.” I squeeze her arm one last time.
This, at least, earns me a small smile. “Love you back.”
Skipping toward the house, my call of “Bee” stops her. “I’m meeting the dad who doesn’t know about me, is that weird?”
She shrugs. “I wish someday I could meet mine.”
It’s a one-two punch as I watch her disappear inside, Reese waving from the porch behind her. She pulls the phone from her ear long enough to shout, “Watch out for pirates. And bring us home a parrot.”
My waving hand turns to a middle finger she matches.
“Thanks for coming, Ree,” I call.
She puts the phone back to her ear and follows Bennie inside.
For the first time in days, it’s just Mom and me, and our aloneness stills the air.
It’s been strained between us, talking only about the necessary details of my father’s location she got from her friend Colleen.
Reese has easily filled in the quiet gaps with her constant work calls and compulsive need to reorganize based on research she did for people with memory issues while filling the fridge with tumor-shrinking foods.
I’m sad and I’m mad and a million other things I don’t know how to articulate.
She’s lied to me, but she has a tumor.
She’s given away our money, but she has a tumor.
She’s a complete pain in my ass, but she has a tumor.
Abruptly, she hugs me. When she squeezes me too tight, I squeeze back, our bodies saying everything our mouths won’t let us. Decades of us bickering the way only a mother and daughter can, all boiled down to this.
I know she’s fine for now, know the doctor said it’s benign and slow growing, but my arms ache around her.
For all the grief she’s caused, I don’t want to let go.
Don’t want to let her go. I’ve hugged her a million times in my life, but for the first time I realize how finite they are.
How me in her arms and her in mine won’t happen forever.
This tumor might not be killing her, but one day, something will, and the reality of that weighs four million pounds.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I say into her hair with a slight crack in my voice. “That I didn’t notice.”
“Ah.” She squeezes me tighter. “Those acting lessons I took in the nineties finally paid off.”
I pull away from her and sniff. “Don’t give anything away while I’m gone.”
She chuckles as she pats my back. “Impossible with Reese’s hawk eyes watching me.”
I settle into the driver’s seat and roll the window down.
“Have some fun.” She says it like everything else happening—the whole reason I’m going—doesn’t exist. Like we don’t need money and she doesn’t need surgery.
This trip will be the opposite of fun, but there’s no use arguing. “Sure.”
“And Rue?”
I lift my brows.
“I might like to come down there.”
“Come down there?” That is a terrible idea. Because Nash. Because Bennie. Because no. “And do what?”
“Will you relax?” She does something between a huff and a laugh. “Only after you tell Nash.” She gives me a look reminding me I will be telling Nash. “I might like to see your dad one last time.”
She’s being morbidly dramatic but doesn’t care for a response because she’s already strolling toward the house, stopping to smell a rose as she does.
On my way out of town, I pull into the parking lot of Jonathan’s dental practice only to stare at the building.
I can’t bring myself to go in and say goodbye.
No matter how many times I explained the logic of this plan, he doesn’t agree with it.
Even after I told him my mom agreed to the surgery, he said there’s a better way.
I don’t want to argue with him; I won’t change his mind.
I want to find the gold so we can move on with our lives.
Pointing my car south and with $647.42 to my name, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.